I am attempting to design (or to prod somebody to design) a USB-audio compliant multichannel data acquisition device. Think a 32-channel USB3 soundcard with 24bit inputs. Could be handy for things ranging from submarine sonar arrays to multichannel EEG. The USB-audio is there to avoid trouble with kernel drivers. But the money is a bottleneck; I’d have to be able to afford a low few weeks worth of time of a FPGA developer…
Another option for fast and numerous ADCs is using SATA as interface; SATA-3.2 goes to 16 gigabits/second, which pushes it to the realm of usability for software radio. The packetizing interface that serializes the ADC output into the 512 or 4096 bit “sectors” could also automatically timestamp the “sectors” (which could employ GPS-disciplined oscillator for global timebase) and be used for passive radar systems for applications ranging from defense to ionospheric research… Think a 1-channel 16bit ADC on a 900 MHz samplerate; instant almost half-gigagertz of baseband bandwidth on a receiver. Electronic warfare receivers of this class could be a pretty handy toy in the Age of Drones.
One reason why it’s hard to make any universally useful thing like this is different departments using quite a variety of different communications technologies. UHF, VHF, high frequency digital, etc. Probably best to do some research first in what a given group use based upon their purchases, or use some sort of field-strength meter to determine their frequencies. And since most people have mobile phones also, the common bands for these would need to be temporarily jammed as well.
You could use an adaptive jammer. Couple it with a frequency scanner, watch where there is activity, and move the jamming frequencies there. No need to jam an unused band.
